


The story after the story

by Northlight (anenko)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Backstory, Experimental, Gen, Jossed, Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-08
Updated: 2003-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anenko/pseuds/Northlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Young black woman dead on metro." The story after the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The story after the story

Down the street or halfway around the world. There's another girl, waiting or not. From one second to the next she is--more than she was.

*

The woman's mouth is bloodied. The long line of her body is stretched out. The floor is dirty, stained beneath the shadow of her body. Her head is bent at an angle. Young black woman dead on metro.

The cops spread out through the car. They squat next to her body. Takes notes. Snap pictures. Officers speculate about a drug deal gone wrong. A boyfriend gone bad. Make jokes no one else would understand.

A few reporters cluster on the wrong side of yellow tape. Peer over blue arms and their own jumble of shifting bodies. Keep an eye on the car. Watch figures moving through dirt-blurred windows. Talk amongst themselves. Hope for a story better than the one they've got.

Grumbling commuters check their watches. Shift from foot to foot. Crane their necks. Strain their ears. Wait for drama. Decide on the proper turn of phrase they'll use once they get to where they're going. Hope it won't be too long.

*

Apartment 10. The door's face has been gouged. The doorbell doesn't work. The detectives roll knuckles across the door. Wait. Set their expressions on sympathetic neutrality. Finger their badges.

A woman answers the door. Short legs in pressed tan slacks. A white blouse. Gold cross against modest white skin. Silver shining in the tight twist of dark hair. Dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her nails are short. Her palms are calloused. White knuckled as she eases the door open.

The apartment is nicer than expected.

The woman speaks with a neat British accent. Invites the detectives in. Moves with tired grace. Bare-footed on wooden floor. Perches at the edge of the couch. Listens, quietly. Raises her hands to her face. Presses her tears into her palms.

A closed door at the rear of the apartment. Opens and a small boy spills into sight. Round face and chubby legs. Goes to the woman. Presses his face into her side. She draws her hand down the length of the boy's back. Murmurs against the top of his head. Holds him in place.

Replies to questions in precisely worded English. Doesn't answer anything at all. Holds secrets in the slant of her thin mouth. Lies in the shift of her eyes. Nudges a closed box further under the couch with a flex of her foot. Shows the detectives to the door.

Outside. Standing on chalk-marked sidewalk under mid-morning sun. Didn't seem surprised, the detectives tell each other. Suspicious, they agree. Shake their heads at each other. Resolve to dig deeper. Get into their car. Drive away.

Never do make sense of British nanny and young black woman dead on metro.

*

The woman sits on a straight-backed chair. Spends hours there. Reminds cops and journalists that dead black woman on metro is nothing new. Nothing this city hasn't seen a thousand times before. Some agree. Some do not. The woman speaks of secrets she should not know. She promises money. She murmurs of magic. The boy plays at her feet. Sends toy cars crashing into her loafers.

The second day ends. Reporters find more interesting stories to cover. Cops are assigned to more pressing cases. Questions about the young woman's death are put aside. Quietly. Firmly. The coroner sets aside his tools, unused. Covers the woman's body. Releases the body from the morgue to stern older woman and solemn little boy.

The woman has never believed in hiding the world from the boy. They burn his mother's body together. They poison her ashes. Scatter her to the wind. Handful by handful, miles apart. The boy cries. Hush, Robin, hush, the woman says. She looks at him as if he were a puzzle. Closes her eyes. Folds down next to him. They shake together.


End file.
